The Invisible Red Thread

By AARON SPENCER

[ONE NIGHT ONLY] In The Invisible Red Thread, an adopted Toronto teenager named Vivian returns to her native China to learn about her heritage. The film is ostensibly motivated by China’s one-child policy that has resulted in the mass abandonment of baby girls, but it more strongly showcases the differences between living in Third World China and the West. The film’s producers put Vivian in contact with a Chinese teenager named Shumin, who was adopted by a Chinese family and now lives in a poor village in Jiangxi Province. Vivian visits her to see what her life could have been like had she not been adopted by her Western parents. Shumin shows Vivian how to get water out of a well and cook for her family; Vivian shows Shumin how to shop at Walmart and wear lip gloss. The movie could be aptly titled Poor Little Rich Girl: China.